


Arrivederci

by somegunemojis



Series: Tender Mercies [15]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Injury Recovery, not forever though, saying goodbye
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:35:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26303533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somegunemojis/pseuds/somegunemojis
Summary: Bettino can't handle admiration with any grace.
Relationships: Bettino Tahan & Ihab Rahal
Series: Tender Mercies [15]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1893175





	Arrivederci

May, 2011 -- Libya

Tahan has his arms crossed, leaning back against the hood of the humvee, half out of uniform-- his tank top is still on, but his jacket is folded up behind his head. The bared skin of his arms and shoulders is kissed by the sun, freckled and golden-brown, and dark sunglasses sit firmly on his face. He might be asleep, for how still and quiet he’s been. 

Rahal, smirking and rail thin in the way that nineteen year olds always are, long healed and standing tall, flicks at his boot to get his attention. Lazily, the older man lifts his head with a grunt, brows furrowed as he focuses on him, and then he sighs. “Can I help you, kid?”

The sharp line of his jaw tightens, and he looks away. Rahal is a mask maker, has some considerable talent with word games and tongue lashings, but he’s young yet, still getting a feel for it. Tahan suspects he’d be better at it if he’d let himself learn how to be human, instead of whatever little hungry jackal lives inside him now. “I’m being transferred,” the words come bursting out of him like a waterfall, a little too fast. I, not we. Tahan has to take a moment to process them, still a little addled on painkillers, and when he finally gets it he deigns to sit up on his elbows, brows furrowed.

“Oh?” He watches the kid for a long moment, before slowly sliding off the hood of the humvee, slipping a little when his feet hit the ground with a heavy thump. Rahal catches him, rights him, and skitters one step away when he stumbles, and then pushes close once more to tuck Tahan against his side, his body heat nearly intolerable in the fading afternoon light. The rocky dirt slides under their feet. “Why don’t you walk with me?”

He doesn’t ask where the kid is going, and the information isn’t offered. Tahan knows he himself is due for a station change-- he’d not been close enough to death with his most recent injury to get discharged, or even shuttled off to Milan’s military hospital, but it had been a near miss. A lot of time was spent insisting he was fine through grit teeth, picking fights with the doctors on base until they’d knocked him out. But Libya was too hot, now, too many powder kegs and too much attention. They were going to start the bombing runs in earnest, to ‘limit the loss of life’, like that made any sense. All it meant for them was a different duty station in another country. 

Tahan is still moving slowly, but the other man doesn’t seem to mind matching his pace, quiet for once. He tries to enjoy the peace while it lasts, knowing damn well the kid has something on his mind. Occasionally, their shoulders bump, and he tells himself it’s because he still struggles to walk in a straight line. He apologizes every time, and Rahal only sighs exasperatedly in response. The crushed pack of cigarettes he’s been struggling to hide from Rossi makes an appearance, and as he pulls one out of the pack and lights it up, Rahal eyes him doubtfully.

“Are you sure you should be smoking right now?”

So much for the peaceful walk. Tahan feels a spike of irritation, and he groans dramatically, “God, not you too.” He reaches out to rap his knuckles against his chest, casually. “I’ll take medical advice from you when you’re a doctor, eh?” It’s a lie-- he doesn’t even listen to the doctors on base, stubborn and restless as he is, snapping when they counsel caution.

Rahal rolls his eyes, knowing damn well he isn’t inclined to listen to any medical advice but his own, and even that is generally made to suit him. His fingers gesture vaguely towards the side of the base where the med tent is set up-- where Bettino has very nearly been banned from entering. “I have a feeling not even an MD would be enough to persuade you to listen to me, Tahan.” Bettino scoffs, and holds out the pack as an offering, a silent bribe to keep any more commentary to himself. The sun falls further on the horizon, coloring the kid rose gold-- skin, eyes, the sun-bleached tips of his hair taking on the color like he was meant for it. “Besides, I don’t have the bedside manner to be a doctor. That’s your job. I prefer to give the injuries, not fix them. Not all of us have a debilitating savior complex, hm?” 

“I’m not a doctor either,” Tahan mutters. Finally Rahal takes one, doubtfully, and ducks his head when the lighter is held up for him, cupping his hands around the end. He coughs a little on the inhale, skitters away when Tahan reaches up to pat him on the back. The hand lingers in the air for a moment, and they eye each other, and then carry on like nothing had happened at all. 

Rahal has to save face, after showing such a weakness. He bares his teeth and holds up the cigarette, perfectly placed between two fingers, an imitation of the way Rossi holds his. “All that work to keep alive just to kill me slowly?” Another winded cough, “how poetic.” 

They wander on, shoulder to shoulder. Tahan smokes, unbothered. Rahal tries to pretend he’s finished a cigarette before in his life, instead of just foisting the half-smoked things off onto his new friends. Tahan breaks the silence again. “Whatever you do, don’t die.” He raps one knuckle against the stiff fabric of his uniform, under the collarbone, right there he knows the long scar he'd stitched closed himself has healed over only a few months ago. This time, Rahal doesn’t flinch away from him, instead bunching up and narrowing his eyes as if he were about to strike. 

There are no talons today. “Nine lives, my friend. Well—eight, now, since you let me bleed for a good half-hour. ” No, no talons. Only stupidity, it seems. “I can’t die. Not yet, anyway. I have plans.” 

Tahan huffs out a laugh around his cigarette and pulls it from his mouth, sighing out a great cloud of smoke that blows away with the cool wind. “Plans? Death doesn’t give a shit about your plans, or mine, or anyone’s. Death comes for us all, eventually. No ‘can’s or ‘can’t’s about it.” 

Rahal puffs his chest out, shoulders straightening into something proud. He looks childish with the pout that won’t quite leave his face. “And what if I am death?” 

An outright laugh bubbles out of him at that, though it sends a spike of pain shooting through his side that nearly doubles him over-- the kid is kind enough to let him catch himself on his arm, gasping for air through his chuckles. “You are so full of shit.” 

A noise of vague offense escapes him, but he doesn’t shove him to the ground. Just mutters a low “Fuck off,” in Arabic and stands guard, keeping an eye out over the top of his head while he finds his breath and clutches at his side, straightening again with a great groan and the creak of his joints. 

They don’t know how to say goodbye. Tahan isn’t quite sure why they have to-- orders change all the time, he knew they wouldn’t be around each other for long, but he appreciates that the kid wants to. He gets the sense Ihab Rahal hasn’t had many people to say goodbye to, if he ever had any at all, and he’s unfamiliar with the protocol of it. He’s moody, and pensive, bunched tight like he doesn’t quite want to let go.

The joke that Rossi likes to make nearly clobbers him in the face: _he’s got a crush on you--_ sing-song and openly amused. He knows it’s something more like hero-worship, has seen something like it on plenty of other young men whose lives he’s saved, but the joke always manages to fluster him anyway. He’s the kid’s shadow, tonight, footsteps cat-quiet, as they become thoughtful once more. 

An entire loop around the base. He thinks he’s going to die by the end of it, breathing nearly labored. Rahal stops still as a statue by the humvee he’d been half asleep on, looking strangely innocent. He feels like maybe he’d just been on the receiving end of some supervised exercise, and he tries to experience some irritation-- something, anything other than a vague fondness. 

He’s unsuccessful. Reaching out, he straightens Rahal’s uniform, and counts it as a victory when he doesn’t flinch away from him. “I’m serious, you little shit.” It’s easy to ignore his bitter, ‘I’m fucking taller than you,’ because the skin at the nape of his neck is warm, and he’s almost pliant when he pulls him into a brief hug. “If you die, I’ll kill you.”

They pull away from each other, and Tahan nearly falls back against the hood of the humvee. Rahal watches him, his hands out like he half expects to have to catch him, naked amusement curling his lip. “I can think of no better way to go than by those your own capable hands, Tombarolo-- but if you want your face to be the last I see, you’ll have to be able to walk more than a mile without getting winded first.”

Tahan barks out another laugh, fingers curled into a fist and pressed into the still aching wound at his side. “Don’t you worry about me kid, _I_ can’t die either.”


End file.
